Call Center Capabilities

Predictive Dialing

Many Call Centers are designed to both take incoming calls and place outgoing calls. The same group of agents may be responsible for both sales and collections. The sales calls are primarily incoming, and the collections calls are placed during lulls in incoming traffic.

Outbound calls may be placed automatically using predictive dialers. Predictive dialers analyze incoming call traffic and agent activity, then automatically place outgoing calls when agents are about to be available. These predictive dialers help management increase agent productivity by decreasing idle time. When you receive a call during dinner and there is a slight delay before a telemarketer comes on the line, a predictive dialer was used to place the call. When the system detects that you have answered, it sends the call to the telemarketer.

Some Call Centers may focus primarily or totally on these outgoing calls, known as telemarketing. In these cases, less sophisticated dialers can be used. Regardless of the Call Center orientation (incoming, outgoing or a combination) management require similar features to assure optimal functionality.

Work Force Management (Scheduling)

Large Call Centers frequently extend their business hours beyond the traditional workday. Staff may rotate through different shifts or part-time employees may be used to provide extended coverage.

At the same time, call volumes tend to be cyclical. Some times of day or days of the week will always be more active than others. Management must provide a way to schedule employee shifts to reflect these changing requirements.

Balancing the number of employees and anticipated call volumes is a time-consuming task. Call Centers frequently purchase automated workforce management software to complement their Automatic Call Distribution systems. Another option for maximizing agent productivity is to mix inbound and outbound calling in one center.

Wall Mount Display

A wall-mounted display of Call Center volume and agent performance can also serve as a motivator for agents. Mounted in positions of high visibility, displays can be used to scroll information about incoming/outgoing call volumes, agents on line, average time to answer, etc. These displays serve as a reinforcer to agents, and provide valuable information for supervisors when they are away from their desks.

Screen Pops

Screen Pops can shave seconds from many if not all calls. Using a computer-to-PBX/ACD interface, Screen Pop brings the caller profile to the agent at the same time a call arrives. This saves the agent from having to ask for the caller's name, account number or other relevant information, keying in a data request and waiting for the screen to appear.

Some systems use ANI (automatic number identification of the calling number) to initiate the database inquiry and screen transfer, while others use an IVR (Interactive Voice Response System) to ask the caller to input identifying information that will in turn be used for database access and a screen transfer.

Fax Server

Routine requests for information can frequently be handled by a fax server. Order confirmation and general information can be provided very quickly with integrated fax response functionality.

These features give the caller an element of control over the way the call is handled. By using automation to eliminate the ambiguity and frustration of long hold times, Call Centers can increase customer satisfaction without increasing staffing levels.

ACD System Features | Call Center Telephone System

Here are some of the system features you may find on an ACD:

Routing

Inbound Call Routing

The heart of any inbound Call Center operation is Inbound Call Routing. There are two phases of inbound call routing: routing to a group, and then routing to a specific agent within a group. Inbound Call Routing uses intelligent programming to recognize and accommodate Call Center traffic and agent performance. The system may have the flexibility to:

• Anticipate changing traffic and performance patterns, respond to unanticipated changes in traffic or agent performance and play announcements at any point.

• Route callers to voice processing devices such as IVRs, Fax Servers or Voice Mail equipment, always providing the caller the option to return to his place in queue.

• Recognize priority callers.

• Advise callers of the number of callers ahead of them or anticipated time before they will be answered.

• Put a pause in inbound routing until some predefined event occurs or some period of time passes. Queue calls to multiple groups simultaneously, including groups at remote centers and agents at home.

• Permit supervisor, administrator or management to make changes as needed.

• Most Call Centers try to distribute calls evenly among all agents within a group. However, there are instances where some agents are better prepared than others. For example, when new agents are added to a more experienced group, management wants the better-qualified agents to handle more calls than the new agents. Several different schemes can be used for selecting an agent within a group:

  1. Top down/bottom up

  2. Longest idle

  3. Agent priority (based on experience or skill set)

  4. A combination of longest idle and agent priority

  5. Performance Parameters & Thresholds

Skills Based Routing

In some incoming call centers, instead of routing the callers to the agent who has been idle the longest, routing is affected by the agent skills required to handle the call. Callers can be sent to the agent best qualified to help them, according to a set of predefined parameters. The caller's needs can be determined by what number he called, what number he is calling from or what option he selected from an automated announcement menu presented to him before being sent to an agent. If a caller waits too long for a specifically skilled agent to be available, the system may be programmed to send him to a less qualified person, rather than waiting indefinitely. Skills based routing is routinely used in Help Desk Call centers where callers are looking for help with the operation of software programs. The ACD attempts to route the caller to the agent most skilled in the program with which they need help.

Overflow

Overflow is a feature that recognizes when agents in one group are backlogged, then reroutes calls to another group that may have fewer calls waiting. In the best implementations, the call volume/performance analysis is done automatically and continually in real time, freeing supervisors and management personnel from minute-by-minute monitoring of each groups call volume.

Night Service

The majority of Call Centers, including those that work a 24-hour day, notice a significant difference in traffic between normal office hours and the night shift. If the center is open at all, it may rely more on automated response systems and will have fewer agents in place to handle calls. Predefined inbound call routing schemes must be modified to accommodate the late hours environment.

An intelligent Call Center system shifts to a night service inbound routing scheme based on time of day. Individual supervisors may also invoke night service manually. When invoked, calls may be routed to another inbound routing scheme, to an answering device, another location or callers may just hear ringing.

Deflection

The cost of calls to an 800 number mounts rapidly as callers wait for an agent to answer. To decrease the cost of callers waiting in queue for an answer, deflection decreases hold times by having callers reach a busy signal or by routing the calls to another destination. This happens when the system recognizes that a management-defined threshold has been reached. Deflection is typically based on the number of calls in queue. A more effective parameter offered by some systems is "time in queue." In this case, a caller receives a busy signal when the longest call in queue has been in queue over "x" minutes or seconds as defined by management.

Interflow

This provides automatic transparent traffic rerouting based on predefined times/days or traffic thresholds. This is useful for multi-site Call Center networks where call volumes and hold times may be high in one location while there is idle time at another location. Or a business may span several time zones and management may want to avoid overtime in one zone by routing calls to another location. Interflow helps Call Centers attain optimum agent productivity while controlling toll costs.

Billing System Costs

Billing system costs include the initial hardware, software costs of the system along with the operational costs such as invoice processing, bill printing and mailing, intermediary clearing house settlement companies, customer care (call centers), and collection services.

Hardware and Software

The hardware usually includes high performance computers that operate proprietary software. Due to the complexity of hardware and software billing systems, continuous training operations support may be required to ensure quality services to the customers and to provide revenue assurance.

Invoice Processing (Batching)

Periodically, billing records are gathered for invoicing. If a company has many customers, they may be divided into cycles (or “billing cycles.”) The billing cycles are different for groups of customers. This allows the billing system to only batch a portion of the billing records each time. These billing records must be forwarded for delivery (to a bill printer or for electronic distribution).

Bill Printing and Mailing

In most cases, invoice records are sent to a bill printer or they may be sent by email or printed by the customer when the payment is made online. When bills are sent to the printer and mailing house, this usually costs between $1-$3 per bill. Sending bills by email helps to reduce the cost of providing the customers with bills and receipts.

Call Center

A call center is a place where calls are answered and originated, typically between a company and a customer. Call centers assist customers with requests for new service activation and help with product features and services. A call center usually has many stations for call center agents that communicate with customers. When call agents assist customers, they are typically called customer service representatives (CSRs).

Call centers use telephone systems that usually include sophisticated automatic call distribution (ACD) systems and computer telephony integration (CTI) systems. ACD systems route the incoming calls to the correct (qualified) customer service representative (CSR). CTI systems link the telephone calls to the accounting databases to allow the CSR to see the account history (usually producing a “screen-pop” of information).

Call center telephone systems can cost over $3,000 per CSR station. The average telecommunications service provider has 1-2 CSRs for every 10,000 customers. This results in an average customer care call costing $7-$10 per call.

Figure 1 shows a typical call center. This diagram shows that calls may be received or originated from the call center. The customer traditionally communicates with the call center by telephone. When a call is received by a call center, the user is typically provides with a list of options by an automated interactive voice response (IVR) unit. As the user selects from the list of options, an ACD system routes the call to a CSR station that is qualified to assist the customer (e.g. sales agent or technician). When the CSR agent answers the call, some of the customer’s account information may become available on the CSR’s computer screen (“screen pop”). The CSR will communicate with the customers and should make notes in the customer’s account regarding the activity that progressed.

Figure 1: Call Center

Collections

Collections are activities that a service provider performs to receive money from their customers. Ideally, all customers will receive their bills and pay promptly. Unfortunately, not all customers pay their bills and service providers must have a progressive collection process in the event a customer does not pay their bill.

When customers are first added to a system, they are rated on the probability that they will pay their bills. This is accomplished by using information on their application and reviewing the credit history as provided by an independent credit reporting agency.

The collection process for delinquent customers usually starts by sending a reminder messages to the customer be mail or recorded audio message. If initial attempts to collect are unsuccessful, more aggressive collection activities will progress that include restricted calling, service disconnection and sending or selling the uncollected invoice to a collection service.

A restricted calling class that forces a telephone (usually a wireless telephone) to be connected to an operator regardless of the digits actually dialed. Hotline is typically used when a telephone is first sold or activated to allow activation after the customer has provided the information to register for service or when the customer has not paid their bill.

If all attempts to collect from a customer have failed, a service provider may write off the uncollected revenue as bad debt, retain a collection agency or sell the uncollected invoice(s) to a collection service. If the account is written off as bad debt, the customer’s information is usually placed in a negative file to avoid reactivation and their poor payment history is reported to a credit reporting agency. Various collection companies (collection agencies) offer collection services that work on a percentage of collected revenue. Some collection companies will pay for uncollected invoices. When uncollected invoices are sold to collection services, the service provider is usually prohibited from working with the customer in the future regarding payment on the account.

Teleservices

Teleservices are telecommunication services that provide added processing or functionality to the transfer of information between users. Teleservices are categorized by their high level (application) characteristics, the low level attributes of the bearer service(s) that are used as part of the teleservice, and other general attributes. High level attributes include: application type (for example voice or messaging) and operation of the application. The low-level description includes a list of the bearer services required to allow the teleservice to operate with their data transfer rate(s) and types. Other general attributes might specify a minimum quality level for the teleservice or other special condition. The categories of teleservices available include voice (speech), short messaging, facsimile, and group voice.

Figure below shows a typical teleservice. In this diagram, a telephone user wishes to send a fax to a recipient who is traveling. The designated recipient has setup a fax forwarding service where the delivery of incoming faxes can be instructed. The sender is given the recipient’s fax number. When the sender dials the number, the call is routed through the telephone network to the fax forwarding service provider (step 1). When the incoming call is detected, the fax forwarding service receives the fax into a fax mailbox (step 2). Later that day, the recipient of the fax forwarding service calls in and enters a fax forwarding number (step 3). The fax forwarding service then checks the fax mailbox and automatically sends all the waiting faxes to the new number (possibly a hotel fax number) that has been updated by the recipient (step 4). Because this service involves both the transport and processing of information, it is categorized as a teleservice.


Teleservice

Custom Calling Features
Custom local area signaling services (CLASS) are telephone service features available in a local access and transport area (LATA) that are primarily based on information that can be processed inside the telephone network. CLASS features include call forwarding, caller identification, and three-way calling.

Voice Mail (VM)
Voice mail (VM) is a service that provides a telephone customer with an electronic storage mailbox that can answer and store incoming voice messages. Voice mail systems use interactive voice response (IVR) technology to prompt callers and customers through the options available from voice mailbox systems. Voice mail systems offer advanced features not available from standard answering machines including message forwarding to other mailboxes, time of day recording and routing, special announcements, and other features.

Central Exchange (Centrex)
Centrex is a service offered by a local telephone service provider that allows the customer to have features that are typically associated with a private branch exchange (PBX). These features include 3 or 4 digit dialing, intercom features, distinctive line ringing for inside and outside lines, voice mail waiting indication, and others. Centrex services are provided by the central-office switching facilities that are located in the local telephone network.

Call Center
A call center is a place where calls are answered and originated, typically between a company and a customer. Call centers assist customers with requests for new service activation and help with product features and services. A call center usually has many stations for call center agents that communicate with customers. When call agents assist customers, they are typically called customer service representatives (CSRs).

Call centers use telephone systems that usually include sophisticated automatic call distribution (ACD) systems and computer telephone integration (CTI) systems. ACD systems route the incoming calls to the correct (qualified) customer service representative (CSR). CTI systems link the telephone calls to the accounting databases to allow the CSR to see the account history (usually producing a “screen-pop” of information).

Operator Services
An operator service is a telecommunication service that uses an operator to assist in the handling of a call. These special handling services include collect calling (billing to a called number), third party charging (billing to another phone or calling card), identification of a person who has called (call trace services), call information services (assistance with directory number location), rate information services (call charge rates), or any other service that requires an operator for special call processing services.

Information Services
Information services involve the processing of information that is transferred through a communications system. Information services add value to information by generating, acquiring, storing, transforming, processing, retrieving, utilizing, or making available information via telecommunications. Examples of information services include fax store and forward, electronic publishing, text to voice conversion, and news services.